Day 2: The seven-hour walk

To think about it, we actually walked for 7 hours for the entire day. We moved out for lunch at about 11:00am, and proceeded shopping till late, as of 10:00pm. Deducting the miscellaneous minutes searching for washroom and eating time, we surely did walked that long!

This is half the map of ONE level of shopping. This quite explains all the many hours of shopping eh?

The second day would be different because my mum would be off with my relatives for their own programs. She's just too tired shopping around with us since yesterday. SO, we actually had Ben to join us early in the morning, be our goodie-two-shoes bodyguard and bags carrier. :P

We brought Ben to try the ever-delicious-and-nutritious meal at 真功夫. And I couldn't resist buying this fresh milk egg dessert. It's the asian version of Creme Brulee! Except, it's definitely less sweet (means healthier too!). BUT, this Asian Creme brulee is much, much softer and supple, it's exactly like toufu! And best of all, it is only 4.50 RMB! Less than a dollar in SGD! I was even planning to buy like 5 back to singapore if it wasn't for the new restriction of carriage for liquids.

After filling our tummies, we begin our extremely long day of shopping again. Trying variety of shoes (speaking of which, they don't actually sell flats. Most of what they sell only consists of covered shoes), looking at cutsie hair accessories, earrings, trying out clothes, etc. The usual shopping stuff. Poor ben has to go through the trauma of stomache pulls for hours even whilst shopping with us. :(

The highlight for the day: Sharpening up bargaining skills. Without my mum around means we had to be firm with our price! The first day's attempt has proven how soft-hearted we've been; paying prices equivalent to what we have in Singapore. :/ We've managed to learn the ropes from my mum and put it to practise! It took us about 15minutes just to bargain with the salespeople! It took two person's endless reasoning and persuasion just to get like few dollars cheaper.

The difference for bargaining in Thailand and China is that, in Thailand, we do not understand each other's language at all, resulting in only price setting and compromising. Which is pretty simple, either a yes or no. But in China, we speak the same language, which also means there is room for explanation, draggy reasoning, blah blah blah. Just to earn more from the tourists, they explained their whole life story, and 101 reasons why they couldn't give further discount as much as they would want to. Morale of the story: Just set a price and walk away when they start explaining. They will call you back if they can meet your price. :)

Finally, a quick bite for the hungry shoppers. We went to Aijisen for light foodies while Ben had his dinner before his ferry back to Hongkong. For us, we had to go for second round dinner with my relatives and mum too.

By the end of the day, we went for an hour full body massage session at 10.30pm. This is the largest massaging centre I've ever seen! It looked almost like an imperial palace, which many passages that leads to many hallways and guestsrooms. And for the service, it costs about 35 RMB for an average massage. The masseuse wasn't paying attention at all, but rather, chatting away with the other masseuse in the room and quickly running through the steps without much effort. It really felt like it was done for the sake of their job. :/

Another day has ended, with some buys and ready for second half of the journey to HK the next day!